Will
Mallory.
Will
Mallory.
Miami (FL)· 6'5"· 239 lb· 4.54s 40
"A 239-pound flex tight end who ran 4.54 and made a defense answer for the seam, then found out that everything above a rotational role at the position is paid for at the point of attack."Pre-draft read
Mallory was Miami's move tight end, split between an in-line spot on early downs and a flexed alignment out of the slot or wing on passing downs. The trait is speed: he releases cleanly against linebackers, eats the cushion on seam and bender routes, and separates late by leaning into the defender before breaking. He tracks the ball over his shoulder and catches with extended arms.
The secondary trait is run-after-catch juice on crossers, where his long stride turns a five-yard throw into a chunk. As a blocker he is willing but light, better on the move as a wing or on a leak block than as a base in-line displacer. The signature is vertical stress from the tight end spot — 4.54 speed at 239 pounds that forces a safety to account for him.
Spread-based offense that flexes its tight end into the slot and uses play-action seams, not a two-tight-end run scheme that asks him to set an edge.
Year 1: sub-package receiving tight end on 20-30 snaps per game. Ceiling: TE1B in a two-tight-end passing offense who runs 400-plus routes.
A gap-scheme run offense that keeps its tight end attached and asks him to base block defensive ends on early downs, where his weight erases him from the field.
His value rises with every snap a coordinator can steal from a defense that leaves a linebacker on him.
Will Mallory 2022 Regular Season Highlights | Miami TE
Senior-season reel: seam routes, crossers and the yards-after-catch stride that defined his tape.
Will Mallory Sets Miami Tight End Touchdown Record
Red-zone moment from his Miami career, one of the school's tight end scoring marks.
Will Mallory runs a 4.54 40-yard dash at the Combine
The Combine run that hardened his Day 3 floor: 4.54 at 239 pounds.
A five-year Miami tight end who came out as a receiving specialist first and a blocker a distant second, Mallory is the kind of flex option a modern offense uses to threaten the middle of the field. He is a route runner at the position, not a sixth lineman, and the evaluation always started with what a defense has to do when he flexes out.
He grew into the job slowly — five catches as a freshman, then 16 for 293 yards on 18.3 per catch as a sophomore — before becoming a starter for three straight years. His senior season was the argument: a team captain, second-team All-ACC, 42 catches for a team-high 538 yards. He closed the year with nine catches for 103 yards against Pittsburgh and posted an eight-catch, 115-yard game against North Carolina. The flags were the same all along: a 239-pound frame with no answer at the point of attack, inconsistent hands in traffic, and a touchdown rate that never matched the yardage.
The board treated him as a Day 3 developmental receiving tight end, roughly a fourth-to-fifth-round grade, and a Combine where he ran 4.54 with a 36.5-inch vertical hardened that floor into a real one. Indianapolis at 162 was buying the movement trait behind an established room, not a Year 1 starter.
- 01
Vertical speed at the position
Ran 4.54 at 239 pounds and plays to it, stretching seams and forcing safeties to open their hips before the route breaks.
- 02
Clean releases
Beats linebacker jams with a quick first step and stem manipulation instead of relying on free access off the line.
- 03
Extended-arm catcher
Attacks the ball away from his frame and tracks it over the shoulder, which is why his yards-per-catch stayed above 12 for his career.
- 04
Yards after catch
Long strider who turns crossers and stick routes into chunk gains once he is running downhill in space.
- 05
Production curve and leadership
Team captain and second-team All-ACC as a senior with a team-high 538 receiving yards on a bad offense.
- 01
In-line blocking strength
At 239 pounds he cannot displace defensive ends and gets walked back on down blocks, which caps his early-down snaps.
- 02
Contested-catch reliability
Drops and body catches show up in traffic, and the tape has too many easy misses for a receiving specialist.
- 03
Red-zone production
Only 14 touchdowns in five seasons and three as a senior despite being the target the defense had to plan for.
- 04
Route tree breadth
Wins on verticals and crossers but the short-area detail and sit-down feel against zone were unfinished coming out.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.54sp50
- Vertical
- 36.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 121inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Miami (FL) | — | 5 | 37 | 1 |
| 2019 | Miami (FL) | — | 16 | 293 | 2 |
| 2020 | Miami (FL) | 11 | 22 | 329 | 4 |
| 2021 | Miami (FL) | 12 | 30 | 347 | 4 |
| 2022 | Miami (FL) | 12 | 42 | 538 | 3 |
| Career | — | 35 | 115 | 1544 | 14 |
2020-2022 verified line-by-line on cfbstats (11G 22-329-4; 12G 30-347-4; 12G 42-538-3). 2018 (5-37-1) and 2019 (16-293-2) taken from the footballdb game logs because cfbstats does not host Miami player pages for those years. Season totals reconcile exactly with the career line of 115 receptions, 1,544 yards and 14 touchdowns. Games played for 2018 and 2019 are left null: the footballdb logs only list games in which he recorded a stat line, and the two published career game counts disagree (the Colts bio lists 58 games with 40 starts, StatMuse lists 50), so no games figure is asserted for those seasons or for the career row. The Colts bio also credits him with 43 catches in 2022 against cfbstats' 42; the cfbstats figure is used because it reconciles with the career total.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Athletic flex tight end who carves out a long career as a rotational second option without ever owning the job.
The upside outcome: a movement tight end who becomes a trusted every-week target on volume rather than on blocking.
Speed-first, undersized pass catcher whose lack of in-line strength keeps him at the back of a room.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Indianapolis got real rookie value out of him: 18 catches for 207 yards across 12 games in 2023 with two starts, including a 43-yard catch at Houston in his debut week and a five-catch game at Cincinnati. Then the arrow pointed down. He appeared in 10 games in 2024 and caught four passes for 29 yards as the room reshuffled around him. In 2025 he stayed on the 53-man roster all season as insurance behind rookie Tyler Warren, who never got hurt, and his official line was one catch for 16 yards. He opened the 2026 preseason with six catches for 80 yards against New England, then hurt his thumb and was placed on injured reserve with a return designation at the end of August.
The evaluation held up in both directions. He is exactly the receiving tight end the tape said he was, and he is exactly as blocked from snaps as a 239-pound flex option behind a first-round tight end should be. A fifth-round pick that returned a productive rookie year and three seasons of usable depth is not a miss; it just never became more than that, because the one thing that would have made him a starter — playing bigger at the point of attack — never arrived.